Storage & Security Journal: "Striking the Right Balance"

Networked storage is a service not a product

Feb. 27, 2006 03:45 PM

Storage is still one of the most costly and fastest-growing aspects of everyone's network and is likely to remain so for some time. Every network user is a storage user. We're all part of a community that shares the costs and the benefits of this expensive resource. Storage management can be a challenging task. There's so much hardware, so many alternatives, and so many issues that it's easy to get lost in the details and fail to see the forest for the trees.

Networked storage is a service not a product. While hardware is necessary for you to provide the service, successful storage management requires a good customer experience, not expensive hardware. Your users are bound to you and the level of service you provide. They can't purchase a unit of storage and take it home with them, nor can they buy storage from another supplier and install it on your network. So we have to treat our users as a customer of our services, not a customer of some product.

The elements that lead to success in the service business are different from those that lead to success in a product business. In particular, service customers want to be a part of those processes that affect them. They want to participate on an on-going basis with the things that will affect them, and it's this participation that leads them to accept and embrace the outcome they get.

The challenge to us, then, as the managers of storage in a cost-constrained world, is to create a high-touch experience for our end users that keeps them continuously engaged at a price we can afford while safeguarding these same resources. Security is in direct conflict with our desire to service the customer because it's limiting. Striking the balance between customers who are happy with the accessibility of the service (storage) and keeping it safe and available only to authorized users is the key. Any product or policy must be evaluated on how well it serves these competing goals as they each map to your organization's needs.

About Patrick Hynds
Patrick Hynds, MCSD, MCSE+I, MCDBA, MCSA, MCP+Site Builder, MCT, is the Microsoft Regional Director for Boston, the CTO of CriticalSites, and has been recognized as a leader in the technology field. An expert on Microsoft technology (with, at last count, 55 Microsoft certifications) and experienced with other technologies as well (WebSphere, Sybase, Perl, Java, Unix, Netware, C++, etc.), Patrick previously taught freelance software development and network architecture. Prior to joining CriticalSites, he was a successful contractor who enjoyed mastering difficult troubleshooting assignments. A graduate of West Point and a Gulf War veteran, Patrick brings an uncommon level of dedication to his leadership role at CriticalSites. He has experience in addressing business challenges with blended IT solutions involving leading-edge database, Web, and hardware systems. In spite of the demands of his management role at CriticalSites, Patrick stays technical and in the trenches, acting as project manager and/or developer/engineer on selected projects throughout the year.

About Bruce Backa
Bruce Backa is the founder of CriticalSites. A noted business leader and consultant in the IT Industry, he has acted as chief architect, technologist, and project manager for assignments involving large scale Technology and Implementation Strategies. He has held the positions of Director of Technology and Business Research for the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and Director of Technology for American International Group. Mr. Backa has been responsible for the architecture, implementation and management of a worldwide Client/Server networking infrastructure for a Fortune 10 company, with a platform of over 600 Servers connecting 10,000 users across 50 cities throughout North America and off shore. In 1994, he founded NTP Software, a provider of business solutions for Windows NT and Windows 2000. At the recent World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Mr. Backa was recognized as a technology pioneer. This follows a similar award from the National Computer Conference in 1974 where he was honored as a part of the Dartmouth College team that invented computer timesharing.

YOUR FEEDBACK

Storage & Security Journal: "Striking the Right Balance"

SYS-CON Australia News Desk wrote: Storage is still one of the most costly and fastest-growing aspects of everyone's network and is likely to remain so for some time. Every network user is a storage user. We're all part of a community that shares the costs and the benefits of this expensive resource. Storage management can be a challenging task. There's so much hardware, so many alternatives, and so many issues that it's easy to get lost in the details and fail to see the forest for the trees.